New ipod will play videos, TV shows

[MTK]

Wow, big announcements from Apple

http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyre...ews/ci_3111375

With a pair of splashy announcements Wednesday, Apple Computer Inc. may have forever changed the way people gather around the office water cooler — and revised millions of holiday wish lists.


Apple unveiled a new iPod that plays videos and TV shows, and announced a deal that will allow patrons to download several ABC-TV shows, including the hits "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," the day after they air for $1.99.

Now, you can not only talk about these shows at the office but also replay your favorite scenes.

The question many are posing is whether Apple's new foray into video will do for television what the original iPod did for music.

"We think this is the start of something really big," Steve Jobs, Apple chief executive officer, said during an elaborate unveiling in a San Jose opera house. "It's never been done before, where you could buy hit TV shows online the day after they're shown." The new iPod allows users to download music videos and TV shows from Apple's iTunes Internet store for $1.99 using a new version of its iTunes software. The new iPods, which will sell in 30-gigabyte ($299) and 60-gigabyte ($399) versions, replace all current versions other than the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle.

Apple said the industry-shaking deal with Walt Disney Co.'s ABCTelevision calls for five of ABC's more popular shows to be downloadable from Apple's online store as early as the day after a show is broadcast. The downloaded TV episodes can be played on the video iPod or from a computer. The online store also will offer several shorts from Pixar Animation Studios. Jobs is also chief executive officer of Emeryville-based Pixar, producer of animated hits such as "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles."

The new iPod, with a 21/2-inch screen, can show full-motion videos — music videos, photographs, home movies, podcasts and TV shows — with the picture quality of a desktop computer. It is the next generation of Apple's wildly popular iPod, which until now was a downloaded music player.

With a storage capacity of 15,000 songs, 25,000 photos or up to 150 hours of video, the new iPod can hold more songs than previous models.

In all its versions, the iPod has become the slam dunk winner of music players, devices that download music from the Web. The iPod has a 75 percent market share, according to Apple's reckoning, and some 30 million iPods have been shipped since it was first introduced in 2001.

Only five weeks ago, Apple launched a small iPod it calls the iPod Nano, and it already has sold more than a million of them, Jobs said.

But by pulling a Hollywood studio into the iPod phenomenon, Apple may be opening the door to an entirely new chapter of online entertainment. Robert Iger, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Co., shared the unveiling stage with Jobs because, he said, "this is an incredibly exciting venture for us. It is the future."



"This is the first giant step in making more content available to more people," Iger told the San Jose audience. "It's a great marriage between content and technology."

To date, the broadcast TV industry has largely been unable to find a successful model for distributing its shows on the Web and has been threatened by loss of revenue through illegal downloads of shows.

The deal with Apple gives Disney and ABC a way to make money through online distribution while assuring some protection against unauthorized distribution. Like the music iPod, the video iPod locks the content with copyright protection software. And viewers will not be able to burn the TV shows or video content onto a DVD or CD.

Analysts see the deal as industry shaking.

"Apple is rewriting the rules of media distribution," said analyst Tim Bajarin about the deal and new product.

Writing in his TechnologyPundits.com blog, Bajarin said, "Apple is actually showing the Hollywood producers that digital distribution of any content is safe and secure and that Apple gives them a new way to distribute their content to the entire marketplace."

But that was not all Apple did Wednesday.

The Cupertino company also unveiled a new version of its iMac computer that in itself has capabilities not seen elsewhere.

The new iMac has a built-in video camera for video conferencing at the click of the mouse and an entertainment application called "Front Row."

The Front Row lets the iMac double as an entertainment box, allowing owners to listen to music and watch DVDs, home movies, photo slide shows and videos from the screen without a lot of setting up and by using a remote control.

But it is the camera and voice software that make this iMac the most different. With Apple's iSight video camera tucked right on the top of the monitor, and its iChat software, the computer becomes a way for users to easily hold Web conversations. The camera also can be used to snap still photos of the computer user.

Apple added what Jobs called "teenage effects" software that lets users manipulate the photos or edit them to change aspects of the scene. The new iMacs will sell for $1,299 for a 17-inch screen and $1,699 for the 20-inch screen model when they become available in about a week.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Yeah, I knew some geeks at the HelpDesk downstairs who hacked their ipods to play video files. The quality wasn't that bad. Sounds pretty cool.

[SmootSmack]

Awesome....my birthday is in a month. I'm just sayin is all

[TheMalcolmConnection]

My birthday is next Wednesday, so I get precedence.

[That Guy]

someone got a TI calculator to play the matrix in 2 colors and 60x90 pixel resolution

sso much for jobs saying the ipod would never do video. I'm sure they'll sell millions of these even if they don't launch a single ad for it. They're just about perfect (except for the unreplaceable battery thing).

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Playing the Matrix in 60x90?! SOME people have too much time on their hands! LOL

[BDBohnzie]

here's my thing. it sounds cool and all, but why would anyone in their right mind want to watch anything on a 2.5 inch diagonal screen? I can't imagine it looking all that good...but with the technology around, I guess anything's possible.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by TheMalcolmConnection

My birthday is next Wednesday, so I get precedence.

I'm a moderator so suck it! haha

[TheMalcolmConnection]

*a single tear rolling down my face*

[That Guy]

The matrix on a TI calculator:
http://www.ticalc.org/images/news/2005-08-16-usb.wmv

slashdot article on it:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article...id=200&tid=137

[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by BDBohnzie

here's my thing. it sounds cool and all, but why would anyone in their right mind want to watch anything on a 2.5 inch diagonal screen? I can't imagine it looking all that good...but with the technology around, I guess anything's possible.

Samething said about the cell phones having the video function as well....

[MTK]

I'm a sucker for anything ipod, I think it would definitely come in handy for trips.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

There's no doubt that Apple makes a sexy product.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by TheMalcolmConnection

*a single tear rolling down my face*

LOL. Why do you want that ipod anyway. Get something more revolutionary. Something that will change the way we think about media. Something like this

I actually had that as a kid, hours of fun

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Are you kidding me?! That's the hottest thing I've ever seen.

Screw the iPod. My parents have all these old Hendrix and Prince 8-tracks. I'd rock those all day long.

Seriously though, I'm all about that New Nintendo, ESPECIALLY if you can download all those old games. I mean I have them on my computer, but there's nothing like playing them on the TV.